The Random Ramblings of Samm Diep

Vegas & Me

This past couple months have been a complete emotional roller coaster ride, from relationship hurdles to tournament upset, a death in the family to winning a tournament. And just when I thought things were picking up...

Mike and I made it back to my house early Tuesday morning after driving through the night Monday from Rugby, ND. CW dropped Vegas off Tuesday afternoon and as soon as I saw him, hugged him, and kissed him, I knew that something was not right (that's Vegas, not CW).

As I was petting him, I could feel that his glands were swollen. He had enormous lumps in his neck about the size of golf balls. They were hard like golf balls too. Immediately, I thought to myself, "Had I just never noticed them before? Had his neck always felt like that?" The lumps were so massive, the fur on his neck was protruding and you could visibly see how swollen he was. Mike noticed too.

I immediately called the vet. They told me to check for any other swollen lymph nodes and I discovered more. In his arm pit, behind his knee, between his legs, and on his chest. He was all lumpy all over. I was completely freaked out. The vet was able to get us in right away that night. Upon seeing him, Dr. Henry immediately suspected Vegas had Stage III Lymphoma, "It's like he has Lukemia." she explained.

We returned the following morning to meet with Dr. Rha. We dropped him and his reindeer off for the day for more blood work and an ultrasound of his abdomen. They later discovered that his spleen was abnormal. Thankfully, his liver and kidneys were okay. But due to the discovery of his fishy spleen, he was now considered Stage IV.

We had to decide whether or not we wanted to proceed with chemotherapy.

I learned that chemo for pets can not be administered the same way as chemo for humans. Since chemo is so incredibly crappy, you can explain to a human that there's a light at the end of the tunnel. You can say to them, "I know this will really suck, but we''ll (hopefully) get rid of the cancer after all of this is over." Unfortunately, you can't really explain that to your dog. They won't understand they you're putting them through h*ll. They simply won't survive it.

Therefore, the chemo doses in pets must be much smaller than in humans. And because of this, the cancer doesn't have a chance to completely go away...

The good news right now is that Vegas doesn't even know he's sick. Though his energy level is low and he's probably pretty confused and overwhelmed, his tail is still wagging and he's still in good spirits. He's such an amazing dog. He doesn't deserve to be in pain.

I ended up canceling all our Thanksgiving plans for the day to just stay home with V-dog. It was his first day of chemo and I wanted to make sure he was okay. And quite honestly, I just didn't feel like being around anyone. Amazingly, his lumps were considerably smaller after less than 12 hours.

So far, he's been doing really well. No upset tummy, just the stinkiest lethal, toxic, radio active chemo BOMBS (as Mike described them) that you could possibly imagine. You can see the toxic cloud of fumes wafting. They singe your eyebrows off and linger for minutes. But I guess if that's the worst side effect, I'll take it.

On Monday, I start my new seasonal job for December so CW will be taking him to his chemo appointments on Wednesdays.

Please keep Vegas in your thoughts...

[p.s. Vegas is the opposite of Marley]

posted by Samm @ 11/28/2008 10:37:00 PM